Gaana launch with Amit Trivedi

Around the summer of 2014, the music streaming app Gaana had as its rivals Saavn and Hungama. Both of whom had launched high visibility campaigns and Gaana was in danger of being flanked by hyper-ambitious competition.

Solution

Since the brand name 'Gaana' was also the generic word for 'song', we planned a Trojan Horse strategy where we created and released this song (with the word/ brand name Gaana prominent in the lyrics) as an Amit Trivedi single on Radio Mirchi through the Times Music label (all owned, like Gaana, by TimesGroup). And also on other music stations (including their competitor Saavn). Later we revealed the ads, and that the word "gaana" was actually the brand gaana.

Results

How many products are advertised and promoted by their biggest rival? Can you imagine Pepsi being promoted on the Coke website? Or KFC being sold at McDonalds? Well, this is precisely the miracle Gaana pulled off, when its jingle (in the guise of a song) was played on Saavn, Wynk and Hungama, topping their charts!

Within 3 weeks, Gaana was the number one music app on the iOS and Android. On iOS it was the 3rd most popular app across categories. The video has 15 million hits and counting.